Midnight in Mexico
A Reporter's Journey Through a Country's Descent into Darkness
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4.0 • 73 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Named one of the best true crime books of all time by Time
In the last six years, more than eighty thousand people have been killed in the Mexican drug war, and drug trafficking there is a multibillion-dollar business. In a country where the powerful are rarely scrutinized, noted Mexican American journalist Alfredo Corchado refuses to shrink from reporting on government corruption, murders in Juarez, or the ruthless drug cartels of Mexico. A paramilitary group spun off from the Gulf cartel, the Zetas, controls key drug routes in the north of the country. In 2007, Corchado received a tip that he could be their next target—and he had twenty four hours to find out if the threat was true.
Rather than leave his country, Corchado went out into the Mexican countryside to trace investigate the threat. As he frantically contacted his sources, Corchado suspected the threat was his punishment for returning to Mexico against his mother’s wishes. His parents had fled north after the death of their young daughter, and raised their children in California where they labored as migrant workers. Corchado returned to Mexico as a journalist in 1994, convinced that Mexico would one day foster political accountability and leave behind the pervasive corruption that has plagued its people for decades.
But in this land of extremes, the gap of inequality—and injustice—remains wide. Even after the 2000 election that put Mexico’s opposition party in power for the first time, the opportunities of democracy did not materialize. The powerful PRI had worked with the cartels, taking a piece of their profit in exchange for a more peaceful, and more controlled, drug trade. But the party’s long-awaited defeat created a vacuum of power in Mexico City, and in the cartel-controlled states that border the United States. The cartels went to war with one another in the mid-2000s, during the war to regain control of the country instituted by President Felipe Calderón, and only the violence flourished. The work Corchado lives for could have killed him, but he wasn't ready to leave Mexico—not then, maybe never. Midnight in Mexico is the story of one man’s quest to report the truth of his country—as he raced to save his own life.
Customer Reviews
Midnight in Mexico
A reporter's story that spans 3 decades of reporting from both sides of the border and regions throughout the United States (California, Texas, Philadelphia, DC, Boston) and Mexico. The strength of the story lies in the author's in-the-moment narrative of what happens when a reporter becomes more than just a storyteller and becomes a part of the story he is telling. He relies heavily on his own family history to trace the journey of Mexicans north and along the way explains the history of one party rule in Mexico until the 1990s and the initiation and execution of the drug wars through the subsequent Mexican administrations.
The story is a page-turner and I finished it in a weekend easily. The action details his own response to becoming a target for the cartels due to his reporting. The historical accounts are superb. Even for a person as myself who grew up visiting Mexico as a child, it was difficult to understand why the violence became so explosive and it is a story he is able to tell deftly through the eyes and words of officials and underlings who devised and acted out the policies that led to the worsening of drug violence in the past decade. A complex story, that took risk to his own life to understand, now laid out for us all to read and learn. It is difficult to grasp as much from following the headlines and this work puts it all into easy reach. It is heavily sourced and has the flavor of reading one of Bob Woodward's insider accounts of American executive branch dynamics.
Part action novel, part historical document, part familial lament of immigration, loss and eventually growing again, it succeeds on many levels.
The author struggles a bit in switching between Spanish and English, often having to repeat phrases for an English audience. I'm not sure if this is the best practice but it took away from the flow in parts.
Overall highly recommended for anyone who has spent time thinking about why two countries separated by such an artificial border have grown apart and together in complex and mysterious ways.
Informative and Entertaining
This is a very gripping account of the impact of cartels and the war on drugs through the eyes of a Mexican American reporter.
Midnight in Mexico
Book was exhilarating. Incredible insight on trafficking world, Mexican and Mexican/American culture and history. While reading book, wondered how licenciado lived to tell.
Also appreciated raw emotion transcending from pages when sharing family interactions and life's travesties.
I hope Alfredo and Angela are married as I write this as they seem to be soul mates and have endured so much together.
I was born in Tijuana but family moved to San Diego when I was an infant. My dad, que en Paz descanse, was born in a little pueblo in Michoacan. Book helped me understand what his life was probably like as a young boy. We take so much for granted and have such a sense of entitlement here in the US, that we never take time to acknowledge our parents painful quest for a better life for their kids. I thank the author for that.
Finally, while reading, was on a roller coaster of emotions: love hate, anger, curiosity....
Four different parts had me with tears roling down my cheeks: Dante (have a son named Dante), Tio Delfino, Wicho and father baseball pic and Lupita. I noticed Alfredo didn't get into details about Lupita until the very end. That must have been a very painful experience to put on paper and share.
I would highly recommend this to everyone, especially if your roots are from Mexico, whether you were born there or not.
I have but one final question for Alfredo, "Can I have a part in the movie?"